There will come a time when you attempt to do something, be it big or small, and you will not succeed on your first, second, or thousandth try. At some point, you will have to decide that enough is enough, and it’s just not going to happen.

When I sit back and look at what I've accomplished in life, I have a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for. A strong education, good jobs, great family and friends, and so on. Many of these accomplishments came not only from hard work and sacrifice on my own part, but that of many others as well.

We all start out with dreams. Big ones and small ones. Maybe you wanted to become an astronaut. Maybe you wanted to cure cancer. Maybe you just wanted to make a nice dinner.

Those were my dreams, and growing up, if you asked me what I wanted to be I would rattle off the names of all of the professions: scientist, chemist, astronaut, dirt bike racer, chef, and a computer programmer (in that order).

And if you had met me early on in college, I would have told you that my goal was to cure cancer.

We all start out with dreams. But then they start to fade. Reality sets in, and the truth comes out that our dreams are just that: dreams.

Time is of the essence. If you’ve ever asked a question in a meeting and half of the time is spent going over what you already know, or worse, something that is completely irrelevant, you know the feeling of having your time wasted. Time is money, energy, and progress, so having your time wasted is not acceptable.

Here’s how to ask the right questions to get you the answers you need quickly.

We’ve all been there. Things are going well. The future looks promising, and even if you’re not 100% sure how your plans are going to work out, you’re pretty confident it’ll be ok.

And then it happens. It could be an illness, a missed opportunity, or failed test. Your world seems to crumble a little bit. What you were holding out for didn’t materialize and you’re left holding the pieces of your plans that now seem to be completely useless.

For those who know me, I'm always working on at least three things, if not more. Currently, I'm working full time as a strategy consultant, painting two websites (this one and TheNewTutor.com), finishing up the second edition of Crazy Enough To Try (surprise!), and a host of other smaller activities.

I'm also trying to fit in time for fun, spending time with my girlfriend, family and friendships, and continuously learning. So the questions is, how do I do it?

This post is the last in a three-part series about achieving success in professional careers. While incorporating your passions into your career is a great way to build fulfillment, this series is applicable to anyone looking to succeed. The first post focused on defining goals, read that one here. The second was dedicated to the importance of learning from others, so check that one out here. This post dives into the most important part of creating a successful career.

Regardless of how you define success, we all want some form of success for ourselves. Whether it’s building a successful company, starting a loving family, or helping as many people as possible, we want to accomplish goals. There are numerous books, seminars, videos, and other materials about achieving success in life, many of which are great resources.

However, what I think is the most important element is simply this:

Do what you say you’re going to do.

It’s such a simple concept, but it’s so uncommon that people celebrate when we actually do it.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll be discussing some of the best practices for achieving success in your professional careers. While I don’t think that incorporating your passions into your career is necessary, I know that a lot of us (myself included) do want to do just that. So to that end, I’m going to share some of the key elements to make that happen, preparing you to reach your goals, whatever they may be.

Success. It's what we’re all supposed to strive for, and yet there are countless definitions of what that means. It could be related to financial, status, impact, happiness, or any number of other goals. Even if you ask two people what financial success looks like, one might say a million dollars in the bank and another might say a billion. There’s no one definition and there shouldn’t be.

Regardless of what you consider being successful means, the truth is we all want to reach it. We all want our lives to have meant something and to have moved at least some version of our dreams outside of our heads and into the real world. But if we want to do that, to bring our dreams to fruition, to build our careers to new heights, it’s incredibly important to ask yourself this question: “What does success mean to me?”

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to address some of the best students at my old high school as the keynote speaker at the National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. It was a great honor and I spent a lot of time planning and thinking about what I was going to say. I came up with different ideas about what passion really means, or how to incorporate it into a life, or what great potential these students had. As the event drew near though, I felt compelled to speak on something a little different.

In the end, I decided to focus on 3 points: Challenges, Mistakes and Support.

We're trying to do a lot here, in this life. Whether that's just to create the life we want for ourselves, to build a new company based on our passions, or to love those around us as much as they deserve. So we develop plans on how to make that happen.

The only problem is that our plan is five pages long.

It consists of building a place for ourselves to be seen, meeting people, networking, learning about our craft, all the while keeping ourselves as involved in our social circles as possible and working to make sure that we are keeping our bodies healthy.

Sounds like a tall order, so how do we keep ourselves sane? How do we deal with being overwhelmed?

"You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You don't start there. You say, 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.' You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall."

-- Will Smith

This is one of the quotes I live by, and I've thought about it almost every day since I heard it.